A stop-loss that made sense on gold two years ago is now inside the noise of an ordinary afternoon. Gold has gone from about $2,650 an ounce in November 2024 to above $5,000 in early 2026 and back to roughly $4,170 in mid-October 2026, and the size of a normal day has changed with it. Here is what the daily candles from our price feed show.
The short answer
Over the last 250 trading days (28 October 2025 to 15 October 2026) the median distance between XAU/USD's daily high and low was $92.70, or 2.14% of the opening price. Half of all sessions moved more than that. Over the last 20 sessions the median has eased to $72.00 (1.73%).
- 234 of the last 250 sessions had a range above $50.
- 112 sessions, nearly half, had a range above $100.
- 45 sessions moved more than $150, and 18 more than $200.
- The widest day was 30 January 2026, with a high-to-low range of $771.60 (14.2%).
How the typical day changed, month by month
The table shows the median daily range for each month, in dollars and as a percentage of the open, with the month-end price for scale.
| Month | Median range | % of price | Month-end close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2024 | $36.7 | 1.39% | $2,650 |
| Dec 2024 | $31.9 | 1.21% | $2,624 |
| Jan 2025 | $29.5 | 1.09% | $2,798 |
| Feb 2025 | $40.9 | 1.43% | $2,858 |
| Mar 2025 | $35.6 | 1.22% | $3,124 |
| Apr 2025 | $85.1 | 2.56% | $3,288 |
| May 2025 | $75.9 | 2.30% | $3,290 |
| Jun 2025 | $47.3 | 1.42% | $3,303 |
| Jul 2025 | $45.8 | 1.37% | $3,290 |
| Aug 2025 | $36.6 | 1.08% | $3,447 |
| Sep 2025 | $53.1 | 1.47% | $3,858 |
| Oct 2025 | $101.0 | 2.45% | $4,003 |
| Nov 2025 | $74.9 | 1.83% | $4,216 |
| Dec 2025 | $66.0 | 1.51% | $4,323 |
| Jan 2026 | $92.4 | 2.14% | $4,895 |
| Feb 2026 | $141.9 | 2.76% | $5,279 |
| Mar 2026 | $158.1 | 3.16% | $4,668 |
| Apr 2026 | $102.7 | 2.18% | $4,622 |
| May 2026 | $100.3 | 2.17% | $4,541 |
| Jun 2026 | $95.0 | 2.14% | $4,008 |
| Jul 2026 | $88.2 | 2.18% | $4,045 |
| Aug 2026 | $86.5 | 1.95% | $4,449 |
| Sep 2026 | $96.4 | 2.20% | $4,157 |
| Oct 2026* | $75.7 | 1.83% | $4,171 |
Source: MindAIGold price feed (iTick, XAUUSD, daily candles). *October 2026 covers the first 11 sessions. The feed's daily candle opens at about 04:00–05:00 UTC, so individual highs and lows can differ slightly from a broker whose server day starts at another hour.
Three things the numbers say
The dollar range more than tripled, but not only because the price rose
In January 2025 the median day was $29.50 with gold near $2,800. In March 2026 it was $158.10 with gold near $4,700. Part of that is simple scaling: a 1% move is worth more dollars at a higher price. But the percentage range also rose, from 1.09% to 3.16%. Gold did not just get more expensive; it became a more volatile market.
Volatility comes in waves
The calm stretch of mid-2025 (around 1.1–1.4% a day from June to August) was followed by a jump to 2.45% in October 2025, and the stretch from January to March 2026 was the most turbulent in the sample. The ten widest sessions of the past year all fell between late January and late March 2026. Since then the typical range has stayed near 2% a day, and October 2026 has so far been the quietest month since December 2025.
The weekday does not matter much
Over the last 250 sessions the median range by weekday sat between 2.06% (Monday) and 2.22% (Wednesday). Event days matter far more than the day of the week; see which hours of the day gold moves most.
What this means for stops and position size
If an ordinary day covers about $90 from high to low, a $10 stop is roughly a ninth of the day's range. It will be hit by routine movement much more often than by a genuine change of direction. Wider stops are not automatically safer either: they only work if the position is smaller.
The arithmetic is simple. One standard lot of XAU/USD is 100 ounces, so a $1 move changes the position's value by $100. With a $10,000 account and a 1% risk limit you can lose $100 on the trade:
- with a $10 stop: $100 ÷ ($10 × 100) = 0.10 lots
- with a $25 stop: $100 ÷ ($25 × 100) = 0.04 lots
- with a $50 stop: $100 ÷ ($50 × 100) = 0.02 lots
The risk in dollars stays the same. What changes is how much room the trade has to breathe. Sizing gold in 2026 with the lot sizes and stop distances that suited the market in 2024 is how ordinary losses become account-threatening ones, the pattern described in why most new traders lose money.
Check today's range before you size a trade
Compare today's range with the recent median before opening a position. If gold has already covered its usual distance by midday, chasing the move gets expensive; if it has barely moved and a major US release is still due, the larger part of the day may still be ahead.
Today's high, low and range
The XAU/USD chart page shows today's high, low and change from yesterday's close, plus the last few daily sessions.
Open the XAU/USD chartPast volatility does not predict future volatility. Trading leveraged products carries a high level of risk. See our risk disclosure.